


In Spite of Everything

by Ani



Series: Unclose Me (The Falls) [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:26:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ani/pseuds/Ani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He couldn’t stay, he had to go back and pack up and… and move… somewhere, move things, move on, move up, but he couldn’t so he didn’t. He went back to 221B and paid the rent and quit his job and slept in Sherlock’s bed, where he’d never slept before.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Spite of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> in spite of everything  
> which breathes and moves,since Doom  
> (with white longest hands  
> neatening each crease)  
> will smooth entirely our minds
> 
> -before leaving my room  
> i turn,and(stooping  
> through the morning)kiss  
> this pillow,dear  
> where our heads lived and were.
> 
> \- e. e. cummings

 

         There was the chase.

 

            After the pool things were quiet – too quiet,  Sherlock would mutter, staring at his mural with fingers pressed together, apparently oblivious to the dramatics – and there’d been peace. A few mild cases. Nothing too dangerous, and if this was purposeful on the behalf of Lestrade, Sherlock didn’t complain. Sherlock didn’t get bored anymore; every night and day he’d surround himself with boxes, chasing cold cases, pinning numbers to the wall, sliding his fingers around the globe like it’d reveal all secrets. He was tense, vivid. Alive. And close. That was the other thing that had changed, after the pool. After the morning John had struggled to life under gauze and drugs and found Sherlock in his hospital bed, stuck awkwardly between his body and the guard rails, clutching his free hand. After that morning Sherlock had dedicated himself to two things: finding Moriarty, and keeping John.

            John had assumed he came second in that list. It still made sense, given what was to come.

            It didn’t lessen the devotion.

 

            It was light, at first, breezy and unstated: a casual kiss on the forehead at breakfast, a squeeze of his hand before exiting the cab, a not-quite-cuddle on the couch. More than friendship but not quite… it was love, that was all that mattered. They loved each other. They didn’t need to say it.

            Until they did, when Moriarty suddenly came back, blowing up three embassies; Mycroft desperately stamping out a half-dozen wars, and they immediately taking off on the chase. They were in France for two weeks, El Salvador awhile, America a month, brief stop in Russia (dead end), south to Comoros. It was running again, fake passports, unrecognized towns, unknown languages, shared hotel rooms: collapsing after a day spying or puzzling over new coins for groceries and lying there entangled and afraid but dead secure, for here was everything - the first night in Arambala, cheap room, one bed, air conditioner broken, they shed their shirts and trousers and lay there panting and sweating, until suddenly Sherlock had leaned up and stared at John and gasped a little, and that was when John had kissed him, and that night had finished the change of that morning.

            They had three months together. Three. Three months to say I love you, three months to dream about forever, three months to know skin. They laughed and hunted and ran and screamed and swore and bled and slept dizzying heights together.

            Then Sherlock found the sergeant chevrons that changed everything. There was a new lead; they flew to Switzerland; they stayed at a luxurious little bed and breakfast; one morning Sherlock sent John into town to ask questions, and he himself was going on a walk.

            John returned that afternoon with a list of notes, ready to share with Sherlock, ready to order dinner together and watch his mind blaze, maybe take a hot bath together, find out where they were going in the morning – and found Mycroft in the room.

            All of their things were packed.

            Separately.

 

 

 

            Then there was the funeral.

 

 

 

            Then there were the days.

 

 

 

            John stayed with Harry when he returned. She was the first person he told – about who Sherlock was, about what he meant to John, about how he died – and she cried for him, shaking out all his tears with her fists in sympathetic knots on his hands, because he couldn’t feel anything to feel something as particular as despair.

            He couldn’t stay, he had to go back and pack up and… and move… somewhere, move things, move on, move up, but he couldn’t so he didn’t. He went back to 221B and paid the rent and quit his job and slept in Sherlock’s bed, where he’d never slept before.

            If and what Mycroft exactly knew he never told John. He said nothing on their private flight back to London, or in the days after. There was a brief meeting, before the funeral, about Sherlock’s will. He’d left everything to John. And Sherlock, it turned out, had _quite_ a bit of money, enough to not need a roommate, enough not to need work if he spent properly, and Mycroft no longer had to keep it under lock and key, doled in doses. So John just sat. He should have worked.  That was what you were supposed to do, focus on others, keep going, just keep going, that was what his life had taught him, his work, his hands and history and essential chemistry, but for the first time in his life John Watson _quit_.

 

            The funeral was three days after his death, “as Mummy would have wanted”. Lestrade was there, and Mrs. Hudson. It was a “short invite list,” Mycroft explained dryly in the limousine, the sarcasm heavy and pointless in his mouth. John had said nothing. He set the first stone on Sherlock’s grave. It was a quiet, grey day, and throbbed green in the rain hue though it never poured, which seemed right. Lestrade took him out for drinks afterward. John blacked out at some point, and woke up to a very hurt and hypocritical sister, which was when he moved back home.

            It was proper, to put away Sherlock’s things. He did clean. He wasn’t living with a _ghost_. He threw away all the experiments, properly sanitized things, built a decent kitchen. He hung up all of Sherlock’s clothes, straightened the bookshelves, neatly put away the strewn notes and case files and boxed them up, under Sherlock’s bed, to never look at again.

            He never went back to his room, except to bring down his things, so it wasn’t really _Sherlock’s_ room anymore, but that’s what he called it. Which was number four on Lestrade’s List of Worry, which John was always adding to. Lestrade was good. Lestrade was a friend. Lestrade visited John, which made him bathe and put on clothes and look like a proper person; for a while Lestrade invited John to the Yard to solve sticky cases. And he’d gotten fairly good at it, using Sherlock’s methods, but the genius was gone. He solved a couple but not a few. Eventually Lestrade stopped asking. They just sat together instead. Lestrade didn’t mind that John didn’t talk.

            It used to be that John talked all the time, to fill the silence; not that he minded silence, but there were times it fell on Sherlock like a poison and then loudly asking himself about his day, oh it was nice, thank you John, that’s good to hear John, mine was adequate as well, would make Sherlock whine that he was being unbearably trite and complaining always drew him out of his shell. So customarily Sherlock was quiet and John was the one that prattled. Now Lestrade filled in the details (new prime minister – everyone at the Yard is doing well, yes – the earth still goes around the sun) and John drifted along.

 

            Mycroft had said that Moriarty’s body had been found. But not Sherlock’s. This was after _he’s dead_ but still, no body, _no body_ , the words leeched into his bones like a honey-drenched hope and he started dreaming about it. Every night. He’d fall asleep only to be woken by a knock on the door and Sherlock would be standing there, soaking wet, as if the waterfall had carried him all the way there, and the water would be dripping from his curls to his neck, all the lengthy way to his collarbone, and he’d apologize and John would say _no need_ and they would love each other there on the floor.

            Even John was aware enough to know the dreams were killing him. So he gave them up. He had to. He _had_ to. _No body – Sherlock is dead. I’m sorry, John_.

 

            Blank whiteness. Hush of static. That was everything.

 

            He slept away most of it but a year did pass.

 

 

 

            On the anniversary of Sherlock’s death Mycroft showed up at the flat and sat quietly in the corner all day and all night, sorted a few papers, read a few books, analyzed the walls. For the first few hours John fantasized about bludgeoning him to death with his umbrella. But he knew what Mycroft was stopping him from doing. And for that he was thankful.

            When he realized that he realized it was time to go on.

            Not move on, because he couldn’t. But go. He needed to start going. So he called Sarah and started up at the clinic again, here and there and then most days. He looked up headlines before seeing Lestrade, so that he could fake a conversation. Went to the Museum and steeped himself in time deep enough his days could feel like seconds. John took lots of walks. He put sugar in his tea again. One day he had the impulse to rescue a new dog.

            That was when he knew he was better. Of a sort.

 

            He spent more time with Sarah, even went on a few outings with her, as friends. Her life was book clubs and sandwiches and late nights of gathered friends who were mostly married and drank wine and wore turtlenecks. It was a world easy to coast in. John had gotten very good at coasting. Sometimes he even dipped into the water.

            Mrs. Hudson helped. Mrs. Hudson was the only person who seemed to really _understand_ , who he’d lost, not just that he lost someone he loved but that he’d lost _Sherlock Holmes_ , and she’d sat up with him the most, brought him the most tea, helped him cry unceasingly. When she saw he was in the world again she took him to the store, and demanded he buy the brightest, softest yarn, merino wool in orange-red sun colors. She taught him how to knit. He’d made a scarf in the army once but it hadn’t meant much; now the rhythm of needles and seconds ticking, of doing nothing while his hands pushed on, of time transmuting through thread into objects, now he understood. He gave that scarf to her. He started on a very awkward jumper, abandoned that, discovered he was pretty good at socks, made a scarf for Sarah, lacy, of blue-green sea foam.

            He knitted the anniversary of the second year, in the flat with Mrs. Hudson, and Mycroft, who ate butter cookies in the corner. He was making another pair of wool socks to hand out to the Irregulars, who still nodded at him, in the streets. Mrs. Hudson was making her seventy-fifth afghan. Mycroft drank a lot of tea.

            It was not that long after he gave the scarf to Sarah that she introduced him to Mary.

 

 

 

            He liked Mary. Immediately. She had a quiet beauty, a grace in the curve of her smile that constantly appealed to him: brunette, long hair in a loose knot, hazel eyes that changed with her skirts. She was crocheting hats for the neonatal unit and had taken an early retirement (stress) from a nurse on pediatrics to work in a second-hand bookshop. She was on paper the future wife of one John Watson, and this was clearly what Sarah hoped for, when she clasped their hands together, that night at the Thai restaurant.

            (John refused to eat Italian or Chinese anymore. It didn’t limit his restaurant options.)

            But he didn’t _love_ Mary. Not like… not like the world was burning in his heart, like the stars swirled in her eyes anytime she laughed, like everything had been brilliantly reduced to one point of human being and this made everything quite wonderful.

            Not like he’d loved Sherlock.

            But that seemed to be okay. She still made him smile. She was so easy to talk to, and they laughed a lot together, genuinely; one time she made this face at some berk screaming on his phone and John had laughed so hard he’d almost fallen to the floor, even though he couldn’t quite explain later why this was so damn funny. Mary was pleasant and kind and always had a nice word for anyone. She took John to art museums and explained things and they spun yarn together while they idly watched television. She even got along with Harry.

            John wasn’t healed, but one day he woke up and felt like he was actually functioning, and that was _nice_.

 

            In the second year after Sherlock’s death, John took his first trip out of London, up north to Cardiff with Mary. They were reasonably sure that was where it happened, though they were both always careful. She found out two weeks later and went to his clinic to be tested professionally and let him know.

            There was going to be a baby.

 

 

 

            John proposed that weekend. He didn’t want to do it immediately, as that then seemed like a lie, and at any rate Mary took a few days to decide on whether to have the child. She told him on Thursday she was sure, and on Saturday he took them on a nice picnic and asked her to marry him.

            He got down on one knee and offered her a sapphire ring that made her eyes permanently blue, and if this had anything to do with Sherlock, he would never say.

 

 

 

            It was the right thing to do. And he did love Mary, in his way. She loved him. It wasn’t the romance of the ages, they both knew that, but that was all right. She was ready to settle down with a family and John was quite the right person to do it with. Harry was ecstatic. Lestrade took him out for a celebratory drink and told him it was good, absolutely bloody fantastic (everything _he’d_ ever wanted out of life), Mrs. Hudson had squealed and hugged him and immediately, that very next minute, dug around for purple yarn and started knitting baby booties.

            Mary found a nice little place for them shortly outside London, a two-bedroom house, cramped, but with a nearby park. John kept the flat. He could afford it, and it helped Mrs. Hudson, and… and no one else could have 221B, they just _couldn’t_. But he moved his things into their new home and puzzled over crib instructions and mostly stayed out of Sherlock’s room.

            It was a bit morbid, Lestrade had said, he really needed to move on completely (List #57), but that John couldn’t, neither of them said.

            Mary was going to wait until the birth, and then decided she couldn’t bear the suspense and asked for the sex.

            They were going to have a girl.

            This was the first moment John had felt _truly_ happy in an exceptionally long time.

            He only had suggestions for male names, though.

 

 

 

            The anniversary of the third year was looming ahead. Mary was two weeks before her sixth month date and becoming noticeably pregnant, the type that made people stop in  stores and coo. She always came with him to Tesco’s. John never grew tired of answering the same questions. He felt often that even if he’d made a mistake, somewhere down the line, somewhere in his whole long history or now while mourning and meeting Mary, then at least this one thing was good, this one perfect thing. It gave him something to look forward to, and he clung to it, tightly, until the anniversary day came around again.

            He knew that if he sat in a room with Mycroft again, Mycroft would read everything in him: that John was wanting to hold his baby, that he wanted to take her and hand her to Sherlock, that he wanted to see Sherlock beam and kiss John’s head, that he still longed so terribly it just broke him, that sometimes he pretended to work and instead came to the flat to float in memory, that he couldn’t love Mary like he should, that he’d never be right again, that he’d lost his rightful half, that Sherlock had created in him the John he needed to be and without Sherlock he could barely live.

            So John asked Sarah to please schedule him on that day, and she did, and all five days before. John quietly marked them off on the calendar in their kitchen. The tiny black lines were all that was going to distinguish this day from the others. Day three, two days remaining.

            He kissed Mary goodbye and went to work and brought his lunch in a bag and had a quiet morning and it was very slow so he decided to do paperwork, so he shut his door and lost himself in numbers. Several charts slid by and then he was dimly aware of some commotion in the hallway, Sarah’s voice, his door opening. He set everything down and turned around to check on it.

            And stopped.

            And stared.

            And clutched the desk and that wasn’t quite enough to help because he was still buckling to the floor and then he was caught in the man’s arms and steadied and the warm, low rumble of “John?” was how John knew this was all real and then he really collapsed into him because here, here standing before him, here holding him, was Sherlock.

**Author's Note:**

> All chapter titles in this series are from e. e. cumming's poems.


End file.
